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Wednesday, January 19, 2011

Who doesn't like the updated FamilySearch.org?

I am absolutely amazed at the undercurrent of dissatisfaction expressed by various people about the updated FamilySearch.org website. I not only hear complaints in person, but there are a significant number online. One example is The Family Recorder's recent post on "Frustrated by new FamilySearch?" (Here the terminology gets a little fuzzy because the website new.FamilySearch.org is often referred to as "New FamilySearch.org." So complaining about the "new FamilySearch" website is very ambiguous). The Family Recorder, Audrey Collins, points out that there is place to register your criticism (and your praise) on the getsatisfaction.com/familysearch webpage. Here is a screen shot of the page:

You do need to sign in to add comments, but the page covers a lot of issues.

I respectfully disagree with the detractors. Here are two reasons:

1. Seven major online collections of images consisting of hundreds of thousands of images from Norfolk County, England. Norfolk is the fifth largest ceremonial county in England and the records cover from the mid-1500s to 1952 PUT ON THE WEBSITE IN THE LAST TWO DAYS! Let's wake up, there are millions of records going onto FamilySearch.org every week, week after week. I continually see Blog posts about such and such a collection of records going onto the Internet. FamilySearch.org is doing that two or three times a week. As of 19 January 2010, there were 532 collections. Watch the number go up dramatically.

2. If number one isn't enough, the FamilySearch Research Wiki has 46,827 articles as of 19 January 2011. Check it out and see how many have been added since that date. You might notice that on the same day the portal page for the Wiki had been accessed 213,190,629 times. If you take time to notice, you will see that the number is going up rapidly.

All criticism aside, FamilySearch.org is making a serious run at becoming the most valuable genealogical resource on the planet. Not that there could not be improvements, but let's give credit where credit is due. Don't misunderstand me, there are still some serious issues with the website, including links and other issues that will eventually be fixed, but let's not pine away for the old website and the very limited Pilot list.

3 comments:

I agree. I think the "new" site is a great step forward. I've spent over 100 hours there since it became the primary site. Like you, I've found lots of valuable new information about my German ancestors. For some people the glass is half full, for me it's overflowing.

Until they get the hang of it people will complain. My complaint is I rarely find any ancestors on there, I think this is due to operator error. I think my ancestors are there and I just can't find them.